An Anti-Smoking campaign for primary school students in Leitrim in nineties backfired and led to increased numbers of children to take up smoking , as a result of learning about smoking at a younger age than otherwise would have been the case
An Anti-Smoking campaign for primary school students in Leitrim in nineties backfired and led to increased numbers of children to take up smoking , as a result of learning about smoking at a younger age than otherwise would have been the case
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[“Tobacco is whacko, if you’re a teen”](https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/assets/factsheets/0302.pdf) – in the 90s, Big Tobacco in the US lost the cancer argument once and for all and was forced to pay millions of dollars to victims of smoking, also they were forced to create anti-smoking campaigns to deter young people from picking up the habit.
Being the dubious crowd that they are, they engineered these campaigns to have the exact opposite effect. How? By opting for a distinctly uncool tone which they knew would never resonate with teenagers who they desperately needed to start smoking to replace their dying customers. Nobody in the 90s used whacko, and it was the perfect choice of the term to ensure teenagers did the exact opposite of what the ads told them, the uncool uncle trying to be down with da kidz.
The “If you’re a teen” part is the best bit, that level of condescension that adolescents hate, what’s the one thing you want to be when you’re a teenager? Older and being spoken down to is the one thing you truly hate.
It’s Leitrim, what else is a young lad to do.